Scarface (31 page)

There was an office just inside the door, an affair of flimsy partitions in the otherwise empty reaches of the warehouse. Four or five straight folding chairs were grouped around a money-counter. The money was fed through a large plastic funnel, and the machine looked as if it was intended for making sausages. One man, a dark Colombian type named Luis, sat at a desk and held a phone receiver to his ear. He never seemed to speak into it; he just listened. One other man, kind of a nephew version of Seidelbaum, sat drinking a cup of coffee.

They began the process right away; it was going to take four or five hours. Tony and Nick sat on one side of the machine, opened the duffel bag, and drew out handfuls of money. These they began to count and stack, noting the amounts on a yellow pad. Each stack of fifty twenties was then passed over to the nephew, who fed it into the machine. It was slow and tedious work. After the first fifty thousand it was hard not to see double, easy to make mistakes.

They all drank a lot of coffee. Seidelbaum’s task was to take the stacks of money from the counter and bear them across to a suitcase on the desk. He put a paper band around each stack and laid it neatly in the suitcase. Luis on the phone and the nephew, Ricky, chatted nonstop with one another, even managing to coax a remark from Tony and Nick every now and then. Seidelbaum kept his silence, only speaking when they reached a plateau. “Sixty thousand,” he’d announce. “Hundred and thirty thousand.” Mostly he just kept darting back and forth, puffing with the effort, rings of sweat at his neck and armpits.

“Oh yeah, I worked in a lotta pictures,” said Luis, still listening at the phone. “I was in that picture
Burn,
y’ ever see it? With Marlon Brando. He’s a good friend o’ mine. I was his driver, like.”

“Oh yeah?” said Nick, not looking up from his stacking. Not even listening.

“Yeah sure, in Cartagena. That’s where they shot it. Gillo Pontecorvo, he was the director. Italian guy.” No response from Tony and Nick. A look of contempt flashed across the Colombian’s face. It was as if he could kill them for not caring. “Yeah, I also know Paul Newman. I worked with him in Tucson.”

Nick perked up. “Tucson, huh? You know a guy named Bobo Alvarez?”

“Uh . . . no.”

“That’s funny,” said Nick coolly. “Everybody knows Bobo.”

Seidelbaum finished the first suitcase. As he shut it and turned the key in the lock, he called over his shoulder to Tony. “Okay, now we’ll draw you a company check off Consolidated Carriers for two hundred eighty-three thousand.” He reached up another suitcase off the floor. “The rest’ll be drawn off the bottling company. Helluva lot o’ bottles, huh?”

Tony spoke very precisely: “My figures say two eighty-four.”

Seidelbaum frowned and checked the printout, long and coiled like the slip from a cash register. “That’s just not possible,” he said.

“Okay, we’ll count it again,” said Tony. And when Seidelbaum groaned with exasperation, he added: “Hey business is business, Seidelbaum. We’re talkin’ a thousand bucks. I didn’t get rich throwin’ away a thousand bucks.”

“All right, all right,” said Seidelbaum. “You keep the change, okay? I don’t give a shit.”

There was silence after that. They counted and counted and drank more coffee. A second suitcase was filled, then a third. Tony and Nick relieved each other so they could stretch and rub their eyes. After three hours Tony had been issued seven checks totaling one million three hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred dollars. Seidelbaum was drenched in sweat. There were eighty cigarette butts in the ash tray. The boredom had strained relations so, they couldn’t even talk to their own men. They were burnt out like factory workers.

Tony pulled the last fistful of bills from the duffel bag. He wet his thumb to begin counting and gagged on the taste of money. On an impulse he tossed the last handful into the air. As the twenties rained down around them, everyone looked up with a kind of glazed astonishment.

Tony laughed. “You think I could take a leak before we do the last batch?”

Seidelbaum sighed, as if he was glad the tension was finally broken. He smiled for the first time, reached around to his back pocket as if he was getting a handkerchief, and pulled out a .38. “I think we got enough,” he said pleasantly, training the gun on Tony. “You’re under arrest, Montana, under the Rico statute. Continuing criminal conspiracy.”

Tony was completely thrown for a moment. The other men now took out their guns. Luis gave a one-word signal into the phone. Tony groaned, then muttered under his breath: “Aw shit.” His eyes darted about the office, scrambling for an option.

“Go ahead, motherfucker,” said Seidelbaum. “It’ll save me a lotta paperwork.” His eyes were mean and agile now. He didn’t seem quite so fat.

Tony grinned. “You’re not kiddin’, huh?” He raised his hands above his head; Nick followed suit. At a signal from Seidelbaum, the nephew stepped forward and disarmed them. Tony said: “How do I know you guys are cops?”

Luis, the budding movie star, flipped a wallet from his back pocket, swaggered forward and shoved it under Tony’s nose. “What’s that say, asshole?” he sneered. What it said was that he was a Fed.

Tony whistled. “Hey, that’s real good work. Where can I get one o’ those?”

Seidelbaum began to drone: “You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to have an attorney present . . .” The door to the office opened, and several more came in, a couple of them wearing the uniform of the Miami Police Department.

Tony turned to Nick: “Gee, we got lucky. They
are
cops.”

“Hey,” said Nick to Seidelbaum, “you think we could speed this up? I’m supposed to meet this chick at three.”

“Can I use the phone now, Seidelbaum?” asked Tony. “I wanna call my lawyer. He oughta get a real kick outa this.”

“He ain’t gonna do you a bit o’ good, Montana.” Seidelbaum pointed to a picture of Lincoln on the opposite wall. “That’s an eye over there. Say hello, tweetie.”

Now they looked closely, they could see a hole in Lincoln’s beard. It looked like a tasteless assassination joke. Tony said: “Is that what you jerk off in front of, Seidelbaum?” Nick the Pig let out a big guffaw.

“You got about an hour, Montana, before we bring the U.S. Attorney’s people into this.” Seidelbaum sat on the edge of the desk. “They don’t make the same kinda deals we do. You know what I mean?”

Tony was suddenly red with anger. “Listen, you fat prick, whaddayou take me for? One o’ your whores? I don’t make deals with cops, they’re too fuckin’ crooked. You got no case, Seidelbaum. I’m here changin’ dollar bills, ain’t nothin’ wrong with that. So book me, cocksucker.”

Seidelbaum drew himself up to his full five-foot-eight. He strode across to Tony and spoke through clenched teeth. “Have it your way, dickhead. This one’s for free—from Mel Bernstein’s buddies.” And he raised the butt end of the .38 and cracked Tony across the face, right along the scar.

Tony reeled back against the wall. Nick lurched forward like a bear, making for Seidelbaum, and two cops jumped him and dragged him back. Seidelbaum slashed with the gun again, connecting with the bridge of Tony’s nose. A great gout of blood came spurting from Tony’s nostrils, but he did not raise his hands to protect his face. He stood there, bruises welling on his cheek and his nose, prepared to take whatever was coming. He even seemed to be sneering, though his lips were covered with blood.

“You pigshit, Montana! You’re gonna rot this time!” Seidelbaum was crazy. The nephew had to step up and hold him, or he never would have stopped hitting. He seemed to take the whole thing personally. “By the time you get outa jail,” he shouted, “you’ll be walkin’ with a cane!”

Tony leaned over and spit blood in the wastebasket, like a cowboy in a saloon getting rid of a chew of tobacco. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, grinned at Seidelbaum, and said: “Wanna bet five bucks?”

The headline in the Miami
Herald
was about two inches high. It looked as if nuclear war was being announced. It said: DRUG KING POSTS RECORD $5 MILLION BOND. Below this was a photograph of Tony walking out of Dade County Jail, Elvira just behind him on his left, Sheffield beside him smiling at the camera. The next day at the courthouse the press numbered over thirty, with minicam units from all the local stations and correspondents from both major wire services. Tony, Elvira, and Sheffield stepped out into the steamy sun, each of them wearing dark glasses. Before they were halfway down the steps they were mobbed.

“Tony!” cried a gaggle of reporters, “Tony, over here! What’s it feel like shelling out five million bucks?”

“Don’t worry,” Tony said with a cockeyed grin, “I’m gettin’ it back. Maybe I’ll sue ’em for interest.”

Virgil Train, Channel 2’s drug investigator, thrust a mike in Tony’s face: “What do you think, Tony? You think you got a chance?”

“Hey Virg, how are ya? You kiddin’? We’ll knock ’em dead. I got the Fourth Amendment in my pocket.”

Sheffield hustled Tony down the steps. A couple of Cuban kids—maybe ten, twelve years old—materialized out of the crowd and held up the
Herald
front page to be autographed. Tony obliged, huddling over the papers and scribbling his name with a flourish as Sheffield opened the limousine door and ushered Elvira in. The photographers crouched and got a picture of Tony with the kids that made him look as fit and wholesome as a pitcher writing his name on a baseball. Virgil Train caught up with him.

“You think you’re a scapegoat, Tony?”

Tony stared into the Channel 2 camera and spoke with enormous conviction. “These bums,” he said, “they think they can snoop everywhere. It’s gettin’ to be like Russia. What’s America comin’ to?”

“Are you proud to be an American, Tony?”

“Virg, I came to this country from a dictatorship. Every night I thank God—on my knees—that I’m free. This country’s done real well by me. I plan to spend the rest o’ my life returning the favor.” He handed the last paper back to the kids, tousled the short one’s hair, and turned to the limo.

“Thanks, Tony,” said Virgil Train. “Ladies and gentlemen, a remarkable man.”

It was that day, between the posting of the bond at the courthouse and the late-night powwow at Sheffield’s office, that Tony started using regularly. There was always coke in the house, in five-gram vials in every drawer, like a chain-smoker’s cigarettes. He’d been snorting a fair amount at parties, and if Elvira was especially ripped late at night and he felt like making love, he’d toot a few lines with her. But nothing regular. Not half a gram in the afternoon as he wandered among the cages, standing on the edge of the moat in a staring match with the Bengal. Not with a gram in his watch pocket as he left for Sheffield’s office.

It was a very tense meeting. Tony paced nervously, smoking a cigar, while Manolo sat in a swivel chair, rocking back and forth as he slugged at a six-pack of Heineken. Sheffield talked through a cloud of Camel smoke, explaining options, charting who was on their side and who was straight. Whenever Tony or Manolo felt like a toot, each brought out his own vial and tapped some out and snorted. They didn’t share. Sheffield didn’t indulge. But it made no more of a stir than if they’d been eating Life Savers. Nobody noticed Tony was using especially heavily. Everyone they knew did lots and lots.

“The bottom line is this,” said Sheffield. “You give me a check for a hundred grand, that’s for me, plus three hundred more in cash, and I guarantee you’ll walk on the conspiracy charge. But then they’re gonna come back at us on a tax evasion. And I’m tellin’ ya, Tony, they’ll get it.”

Tony said: “What am I lookin’ at?”

“Five years, maybe three,” shrugged Sheffield. “Maybe less if I can make a deal.”

Tony whirled around and smashed his fist on the desk. “Three fuckin’ years in the can? For what? For washin’ money? Gimme a break, George—this whole country’s built on grand theft.
I’m
not gonna take the rap.”

“Hey, Tony, what’s three years? It’s not like Cuba here, ya know. It’s like goin’ to a hotel, for Christ’s sake.”

Tony shook his head coldly. No deal.

“Come on, Tony,” coaxed Sheffield, “I’ll delay the trial. A year and a half, two years—you won’t start doin’ time till eighty-five.”

“No way, George.” Tony kept shaking his head. He drew the vial of coke from his watch pocket. “They ain’t never gonna get me back in a cage. Never. You got that?” He paused just long enough to tap the coke on the back of his hand and breathe it in with a grunt. “Look, George, how ’bout I go another four hundred grand? How ’bout
eight
hundred grand? With that you oughta be able to fix the Supreme Court, huh?”

Sheffield sighed. “It ain’t that simple, Tony. Look, the law has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. I’m an expert at makin’ ’em doubt, but when you got a million three undeclared dollars staring into a video camera, honeybaby, it’s hard to convince a jury you found it in a cab.”

Tony paced back and forth like—well, like a tiger. He could barely contain his rage, and neither of the other men spoke for a moment, for fear he would explode. He looked terribly lonely just then, like a king in exile. Finally he turned to face them. He stared first at Manolo, the closest thing he had to a brother, almost as if he’d never seen him before. Then he leaned across Sheffield’s desk and spoke with a savage patience.

“All right, George. I do the three fuckin’ years. But lemme tell you about
my
law. There ain’t no reasonable doubt, it’s real simple. If you’re rainmakin’ the judge or you screw me outa the four hundred grand and I come in guilty on the big rap, then you, the judge, the prosecutor, the whole fuckin’ U.S. Army, nothin’s gonna stop me. I’ll come and tear your eyeballs out. Okay?”

Sheffield nodded coolly. “You’ve made your point. Where’s the money?”

Tony looked at Manolo, who picked up a large briefcase off the floor and set it on Sheffield’s desk. As he flicked the catches and lifted the lid, revealing stacks and stacks of twenties, Tony turned abruptly and strode from the office. He was damned if he’d watch them count it.

Chapter Eight